


The Reason I didn't Update: Equivocal Essays

by MsLanna



Series: TRIDU-verse [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-30
Updated: 2015-05-30
Packaged: 2018-04-02 01:54:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4041190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsLanna/pseuds/MsLanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Silly little essays on topics that came to my mind while writing the story.<br/>I'll add as I go along.</p><p>Suggestions will be taken and elaborated on. Drop me a line. :-)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chiss Names

Chiss Names  
or  
Why did I have to go and make things so complicated?

 

The basic idea is simple and I grabbed it from Zahn. Who else really? He's the God of Chiss. I'd adhere to him more closely if my stuff hadn't been written already when Outbound Flight came out. Oh well.

Chiss names are made up from three parts, each separated by an apostrophe. The last letter of the first part, the middle, and the first letter of the last part make up the core name. Easy-peasy.

Full name: Mitth'raw'nuruodo, Kres'ten'tarthi, Mitth'ras'safis

Core name: Thrawn, Stent, Thrass

_**Exception**_ : Chaf'orm'bintrano – Formbi; I really don't know why. My explanation was that 'mb' is one phoneme and the transcription into basic made it into two letters. But they are separated by the apostrophe, so no excuses.

 

What's up with the parts?

In TRIDU I use the following system:

The first part signifies the Ruling House/Family a person belongs to. Then comes the 'private' name and the last part is another family name. The letters will be chose to refer to characteristics wished upon the child. Cheesy. I apologise.

So Kres'ten'tarthi is Stent Tarthi of House Kres

Mitth'ras'safis is Thrass Safis of House Mitth.

Mitth'raw'nuruodo is Thrawn Nuruodo of House Mitth. (I have somewhere explained the reason he has another Ruling House as his private surname with inter-house negotiations and marriage plans.)

 

What about Commoners?

Commoners do not belong to a Ruling Family. Thus they do not have the first part of the name. An example would be my steward of House Mitth, Aden who's full name is Ade'nawarat. He served for House Mitth in the military. During that time his name has been Mitth'ade'nawarat, Thaden.

When a commoner joins the military, the House he is joining for is added to his name; when he leaves it is taken off again.

 

What if you are merit adopted?

This case is easy. You just get to keep you new prefixed House name.

 

But what if Chiss marry?

Then things get complicated. For commoners it is pretty much as it is here, one changes their last name. This depends on which family is joined. Something to be negotiated by the families taking social standing and such into consideration.

For members of Ruling Families it is more complicated. If they marry into another Ruling House, the first part of their name changes. Additionally, the last name changes as well, because the person is not only changing their House but also their family.

Taking the main line of House Mitth as an example.

The House Prefix is Mitth, the last name of the main branch is arash. So if you marry into that family, you take your three core letters and squeeze them in there. Let's take Stent as example. His new name would be Mitth'ten'arash, Thtena. Let's hope he never does that, because nobody could pronounce it.

 

What about the Admirals?

Admirals like Ar'alani seem to have lost the first letter of their core name with the Family prefix. In TRIDU they do not get that letter back when they return to their families after retiring from their post as Admiral.

Since I decided that Ar'alani is also House Mitth, her name after leaving the military will be Mitth'ar'alani, Thara. The shortened name will let everybody know where she has been in life.

 

Doesn't this cause a lot of confusion?

If you grow up with it, probably not. For everybody else, you can be sure as hell it does.


	2. Cities on Csilla

I have grudgingly accepted that the Chiss live under several kilometres of ice. I have thought up reasons why and how because to me it is not making the most of sense. 

Positions

The cities have been positioned strategically. Since people need energy and that is had to come by under the ice, hot springs or generally a closeness to fissures and lava were reasons to place cities. Access to ground water as well and mountain ranges to protect the cities from the moving ice. 

The Structure

I wondered why the sky/ice is not falling down on their heads. A sci-fi solution was an option but I went for something I could remember and which would make for interesting restrictions. The cities under the ice are made up of rings of 'bubbles' around a central unit. Have an ugly drawing of Csaplar:

The bubbles can't be too big or they will cave in. Since this is the GFFA I thought that a few kilometres across will do. I am very bad with distances, sizes and such. Still, the Central bubble is the biggest housing the important things like universities, museums, the senate and other political stuff, the main mall, restaurants hotels, etc..

Around it the rings of bubbles house the other districts. There are nine in the first ring, one for each house. Behind those are the districts for the other people and on the very outside recreational and agricultural districts. They are connected by an overhead skyrail, the station is in the middle of each district. Since you can easily reach anything within one district by foot, you really only use that if you go further than one bubble.

The houses are generally taller towards the middle of each bubble, where a central 'stalk' reaches up to the ceiling towards the skyrail. I'd say the 'sky' is one kilometre away give or take some. In the districts of the Houses, no building is higher than four storeys. In Central they can reach up several hundreds storeys close to the stalk. The Arts Tower with 99 storeys is middle sized. In the living quarter of the commoners, houses are usually between 10 and 40 storeys.

In each bubble there will be several parks, because seeing 'nature' is a necessity. Plant and animal life is carefully observed and kept in check.

Have an ugly drawing of how a House District is set up:

The other districts follow the same pattern for the streets, but naturally have no anero and no House Museum. Have a _**beautiful**_ drawing of one of the recreations districts. (I did not draw this, naturally, but the artist prefers to stay anonymous.)

Implications

If you live under the ice, there is only so far you can go. You have to excavated everything and the ice will not stay still and let you. It moves about and shifts. The Chiss have their hands full just keeping everything where it is.

Accordingly, space is precious. Anything that is not necessary but allowed to take up space is there for the prestige of being able to afford wasting space. The anero of the Ruling Families are a prime example of this: huge houses with only two storeys and a huge park for themselves. The epitome of wasting space. Have an ugly drawing of the layout of the common anreo:

Of course there are a lot of aspects that have to be considered when living in a closed environment under the ice. Maybe I'll address them later if I think it will help, or you can ask for something any time.


	3. Nature on Csilla

As mentioned before, I consider the cities under the ice to be well maintained micro-ecologies. Since there is a limited amount of space, air, and everything, the number and amount of species living in a city is restricted.

 

There is no weather

With no sky above but several kilometres of ice, there is no sun or rain or even wind. The light is artificial and has a cycle that copies that of the surface. Instead of sunrise or sunsets, the light is dimmed or slowly turned on.

There are no stars above. During the night the sky domes are dark. The only light comes from occasionally passing skyrails. There are stars installed in the sky, but they are only lit for special occasions. This is a mix of tradition and energy saving.

You will never need a jacket or worry for your garden party. Anything you wear is a fashion statement because the temperatures are always the same.

Another aspect to a frozen sky only a mile and some above your head is a lack of birds. Some are living in parks or gardens but they are unable to fly long distances and generally stay put.

 

Plants

The plants are watered through irrigation systems running along under the whole city. In the inner districts plant serve only decorative purposes. Species are chosen by their ability to survive with the given light and if their procreation can be controlled. Hand-pollination is a big thing. Everything that reproduces as it likes is out. If you can afford constant weeding, you might have one or two of those for show. But regulatory authorities are watching you over your shoulder very closely.

In the outer rings recreational districts have recreated woods or other landscapes. They are gardened meticulous, no matter how 'wild' they may appear.

There are likely oxygen-refineries somewhere to make sure nobody has to suffocate. The plants alone will never produce enough oxygen for any of the cities to survive.

 

Animals

Like plants, all animals on Csilla are accounted for and purposefully placed where they are. Birds that don't fly around too much everywhere and other animals in the recreational districts. A little like a zoo.

But no insects. No spiders, no bugs, no butterflies. They are too difficult to control so they have been abolished. It must seem awfully sterile in the long run. Though having no mosquitoes is probably a plus.

There are probably 'archives' containing the native specimen so they can be reinstalled in nature should Csilla ever thaw.

 

No Open Water

Not natural, anyway. Streams and ponds are worked into the gardens. But there are no rivers, lakes or oceans. That means no big fish. No fish for consumption. No holiday at the beach. No tides, but who'd notice without an ocean?

 

Consequences

There must be hordes of gardeners and animal keepers in each city just to keep everything growing and decaying properly. Each leaf has to be removed by hand, each flower has to be pollinated by hand. If it is supposed to procreate.

There are hordes of mechanics on and about simply keeping the sky up and the water flowing.

You are living in a windless, weatherless, sterile wannabe-world. But it'd be pretty...


	4. Pronouns

A Word on Pronouns

When I talk about Cheunh here, please be aware that this is nothing official. Canon (Legends) information will be marked as such. Everything else is my very own madness. Sorry.

A pronoun can be worth a thousand words. In Cheunh that might be true. I created 44 and then 44 for the possessive. Yes, indeed. There's a chart at the end. I'll talk about it in pieces, starting with the easy bits.

 

It (ua)

The easiest pronoun in Cheunh. It is only used of inanimate objects. Grammatical gender does not exist. Animals fall into this category, pets exempt.

 

I (u)

In Cheunh the personal pronoun for oneself is dropped whenever possible. This comes from a tradition of (assumed) modesty. You don't call attention to yourself. That is immodest and worse, impolite.

 _Went to the exhibition._ ( _Fa'for'okakiu_.)Is a complete sentence in Cheunh because the assumed subject is the speaker.

The only reason to say _I went to the exhibition_ ( _Ufa'for'okakiu_.) would be narcissism or the need to actually emphasise it was the speaker who went and not somebody else. An eloquent speaker will find a way to avoid this.

 

(S)he (yia)

There is no distinction between female and male.

Instead it is distinguished between whether or not the other person belongs to the same Family as the speaker and whether their status is higher or lower. If no other status is implied in the pronoun, the other person is of the same status as the speaker. Yep, you better know your social hierarchy.

To make things even nastier, the difference between higher and lower status is a tiny pronunciation.

Higher status: yiaä  
Lower status: yiā

So, for the higher status there is a tiny pause between tow 'a' while for lower status it is simply a long 'a'. It is very easy to insult somebody accidentally. *coughcough*

Except of course if you want to insult somebody. For the there are two pronouns which indicate that the other has no status or worse is an alien without status.

 

You (a and at)

You can be singular and plural in English. Cheunh has one pronoun for the singular and one for plural. Other than that it works exactly like (s)he. The insulting pronouns have their origin here.

 _Ᾱtaki_ _'fafo'kakiu_ – You person of lower status that I insult went to the exhibition.  
_Aäteki_ _'fafo'kakiu_ – You abominable alien idiot I can't insult worse in one pronoun went to the exhibition.

 

Confused yet?  
Good because it's only getting worse.

 

 We (ko and ka)

In Cheunh there are two 'we's. One is including the listener, one is exluding him. So by saying 'We went to the exhibition' the listener would know it that was an event he was included in or not:

 _Kofa'for'okakiu_ – we went to the exhibition (you were there, you eel)  
_Kafa'for'okakiu_ – we went to the exhibition, but the group did not include you.

Convenient, isn't it?  
Of course you can again tell if the listener is of the same house and status. There are no insulting-pronouns for we. Nobody wants to insult themselves.

 

They (tan and tona)

Again two versions. 'tan' is used if the listener is included in the they; tona if they is a completely separate group. Naturally, the first is often used to insult as well.

 _Tan'_ _afo'kakiu. –_ They went to the exhibition and you idiot accompanied them.  
_Tona_ _f_ _'_ _afo'kakiu. -_ They (aka those idiots) went to the exhibition.

Both forms of 'they' can again be distinguishing family and status plus you can add insult to insult and use insulting pronouns with the insulting inclusive they. Yay!

 

Eels!

Wait, what?  
No, you read right. A side-trip to eels. The Cheunh word for eel (atik) is very close to its pronouns reserved for non-entities: atakik, aätekik

Naturally, if you cannot insult somebody because it would be impolite or not acceptable because of social decorum, you can always call on the eels. Or in reverse, you can just call the idiot an eel.

A lot of swearing in Cheunh involves eels.

 _Rok'yetatik_ – bucket of eels  
_We'_ _ë_ _undan'erkiur'jontrik'rokyetatik_. - Like something found at the bottom of a bucket of eels.  
_Arasayet'kik_. - Head full of eels.

 

Conclusion

With 54 pronouns and 54 possessive pronouns, Cheunh has definitely an over-abundance of those little words. But it gives you the opportunity to insult all and everybody with one carelessly prolonged vowel. If that isn't fun, I don't know what is.


End file.
